This invention relates to a method utilizing a digital computer for translating between natural languages.
Attempts have been made to utilize digital computers for translating from one language to another, i.e., from a source language to a target language. The translation systems involve a programmable digital computer system along with a program for effecting the translation. The approaches used were theoretical. The theoretical language approach for syntactical analysis has not been acceptable because it starts out from linguistic assumptions instead of considering the capabilities of the program digital computer and approaching the translation from the computer's point of view.
One reason for the failures in the past was that linguistics and computer programmers worked in separate groups. The information exchanges between these groups was negligible. Either linguistic approaches were forced into the computer, in which case the computer was not used correctly, or they were modified to such an extent that they could not carry out the tasks.
The idea of machine translation was conceived in 1946 by Warren Weaver and A. D. Booth. Many attempts to achieve a machine translation system and put it into operation have been made inside and outside the United States since that time. Due in part to inadequacy of hardware, the projects outside of the United States did not make significant progress. The projects in the United States were directed toward developing linguistic theories encompassing the whole natural language and then going to the computer. This approach inevitably failed because the human mind cannot encompass the totality of the language. The approaches were also unsuccessful because the work was restricted to experimental work on certain aspects of the problem.
The following is a brief resume in the approaches and the theory behind them:
The General Analysis Technique (GAT) developed at Georgetown University from 1958 to 1963 used a linguistics oriented computer coding scheme. Ad hoc solutions were introduced and the whole system was confined within a hollow restricted so-called Simulated Linguistic Computer (SLC) system written in octal language and not open for any further improvements.
The Fulcrum theory approach developed from 1959 to 1967 by the Bunker-Ramo Corporation, was directed toward solving, with a relatively small dictionary, the problems occurring in a limited Russian text. No attempt was made to introduce resolution of multiple meanings; instead, several meanings were printed in the output, separated by slashes.
An approach taken by International Business Machines in 1957 to 1968, initiated by International Telemeter Corporation, was hardware oriented. An attempt was made to insert all the words, and every compound in declinable form, in a photo disk for a large scale dictionary lookup. Syntactic consideration were very limited. Both the approach and hardware failed because compounds cannot be just translated as they occur, but have to undergo a syntactic analysis. In addition, tiny unavoidable accumulations of dirt or dust on the disk caused serious problems resulting in unusable translations.
A predictive syntax system was developed by the National Bureau of Standards and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960 to 1964. This approach failed because it considered only one limited path to the sentence This system was never implemented on a larger scale, but was used just within a limited experimental environment.
Transformational grammar was another approach. However, this approach turned out to be absolutely incompatible with computer translation requirements. Only small experimental systems have been developed on the basis of this theory, and they had to be discontinued before any significant translation was produced.